Legacy is an aspect of superhero stories that isn't very common over at Marvel. While DC
has had numerous titles that pass from one character to another, Marvel doesn't really
do that. Many people have used the Captain America name, but it always comes back to
Steve Rogers. Same with Thor, Peter Parker, and Jessica Drew. Two exceptions to this are
Ant-Man and Captain Marvel, both of which have featured in self-titled entries of the
Marvel Cinematic Universe. Neither one centres on the original hero to bear the titular mantle,
and both approach the legacy of those titles very, very differently.
Ant-Man centres on second Ant-Man, Scott Lang. I have three theories as to why they opted
for him over the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym. For one, Scott was Ant-Man at the time, while
Hank had since moved on to the Yellowjacket and later Wasp monikers. Second, Scott has
a strong emotional hook, being an ex-con trying to do right by his ex-wife and their daughter.
Hank's story would be more focused on his romance with Janet and his mental health,
which leads us into our third reason.
During a suspension from the Avengers, the mentally-unstable Hank plotted to use a robot
that would decimate the team, only for him to then defeat it and regain his glory and
place on the team. Janet found out and Hank hit her when she tried to stop him. This one
incident has become Hank's lasting legacy and eternal shame, even moreso than the fact
that he created Ultron! One needs only look at his toxic relationship with Janet in the
Ultimate Universe to see how heavily this has followed him since.
As a result of this, I'm sure no one at Disney or Marvel Studios was particularly keen to
dive into the sea of articles about how "Marvel's Newest Hero is a Domestic Abuser". I'm sure
Hank could lead his own movie now, after two movies about how he loves his wife very much
and will got to any length to bring her back, but at the time... yeah, Scott was probably
the safer option. Speaking of Scott, uh, Scott from NerdSync once made a video to explain
that Hank wasn't meant to actually strike Janet like that, so check that one out.
The point of all this backstory is that, opting for the second Ant-Man over the original was
very much a necessity, even if that wasn't the main reason they chose Scott. But despite
them skipping over Hank, they made sure to properly pay tribute to the one who started
it all.
Hank is a prominent character in the Ant-Man films, retaining his role in the discovery
and naming of Pym Particles, the creation of all the technology Scott employs, and even
being the original Ant-Man in the past. But more than just playing a key part in both
the creation of Ant-Man and Scott's assuming that mantle, the actual stories of the films
revolve around Hank. He's the one who arranges for Scott to become Ant-Man and trains him
to use the technology to its fullest. The other part of the series' trinity is Hank's
daughter. And the villains of the first two films are motivated by their connections to
Hank instead of Scott. Scott is the protagonist and the focus of the films on the micro level,
but Hank is the one who connects all of the characters and serves as the focus on the
macro level. I mean, there's a reason they opted for the first film's antagonist to use
Hank's moniker from his unstable period.
And more than that, they used a reimagining of Hank's daughter from the defunct MC2 imprint
to create a narrative parallel between the two Ant-Men, both of whom love their families
and are trying to redeem themselves and repair their damaged relationships with their respective
wife and daughter. Through working together, both are able to mend their relationships
and reunite their families, leaving both much more complete than they were before they met.
Isn't that nice?
All in all, the Ant-Man films not only acknowledge Hank's part in the legacy of the persona he
created and make a great mentor figure out of him, but they also pay tribute to him in
pretty much every facet of the storyline, and cleaned up his image enough that one can
easily imagine him getting his own film now.
Now, let's move over to Captain Marvel and see how well that film handles the legacy
aspect.
The Captain Marvel of the MCU is Carol Danvers. Originally a love interest for the original
captain, Mar-Vell, Carol gained her own powers and became the spin-off character Ms. Marvel,
before adopting the Captain moniker briefly in House of M, before taking it for real in
2012, making her the seventh character to officially use the name in the main Earth-616
continuity. I covered this in more detail on Canon Ball, if you want to know more.
Why Carol was chosen likely comes down to her using the title in the comics at the time,
her being the most popular character to use it (at least in Marvel, Billy would easily
take that spot across all companies), and because it made for an easy win with the kinds
of people that had been clamouring for a female-led movie in the MCU for years, even if they did
let the chance to have the first good female-led superhero movie slip through their fingers
and become one of the few wins DC's floundering cinematic universe ever had over the MCU.
Of course, there are two other female Captain Marvels, but one comes with the baggage of
being Mar-Vell's daughter and not particularly popular (though she absolutely should be in
a Guardians film with her space dragon GF), while the other only used the name and isn't
really connected to the legacy beyond that. Still, the latter does show up in the film,
along with Mar-Vell, and I think we can all agree that neither one was really honoured
the way Hank was.
First, Mar-Vell. In the comics, Mar-Vell was a Kree military captain who turned against
his people to protect the Earth. Sadly, he's mainly remembered for the acclaimed story
in which he died, which I think could have been used in the climax or a sequel that passes
the torch to Carol, but maybe they figured that a story about a woman who don't need
no man works better if she doesn't take every tool at her disposal from a man, Kate!
In the movie, Mar-Vell is a female Kree scientist, because #MoreGirlsInStem? The gender change
may not have been to push the Girl Power message, like how I doubt the Ancient One's sex change
in Doctor Strange was to serve that purpose, but given how the film presents Carol and
falls into that trap so many other female-led stories do (where the cast is predominantly
female and the men are mostly incompetent, evil or just general douchebags), it's hard
not to see it that way. At the very least, you'd think they'd have made her a warrior
still, but that got changed as well. For my money, Jude Law should have played a warrior
Mar-Vell who forms a strong bond with Carol and passes the torch to her at the end. Think
Vic and Renee in DC's 52.
As for Monica Rambeau, here she's the child of Carol's old air force partner, Maria, who
looks up to her Aunt Carol. I'm surprised they made Monica the daughter instead of the
actual partner, but with the film being set in the '90's, I assume the plan is for Monica
to be an adult in Carol's next adventure and serve as her big screen successor, while Kamala
Khan fills that role in the TV shows. Adult Monica's already confirmed for an appearance
in the WandaVision show on Disney+.
Until then, the closest thing to an acknowledgement of her place in the Captain Marvel legacy
Monica got is that Carol asks her to choose her costume's new colour scheme, which doesn't
even include the easy tribute of trying out Monica's own colour scheme, and Carol replaces
it in Endgame anyway. Mar-Vell's closest tribute was Carol adopting his colours and short hair
from the comics in Endgame, but it ends up looking more like Justice Lords Wonder Woman.
Carol is placed front and centre, with Mar-Vell playing a role in her backstory, unwittingly
giving her powers (which might get retconned in a future film anyway if they incorporate
Carol's new half-Kree lineage from the comics). Carol's codename may be inspired by Mar-Vell
and serve as her tribute to her, but in the comics, it was a play on his own rank and
name that came from the people he had chosen to defend. It was a sort of tribute to the
people of his new home and served as a symbol of his new mission, and was then passed on
to numerous others that used his name in homage of his heroism. In the film, it holds far
less significance. And their willingness to change not only his sex, but his occupation
and significance to Carol's story as well, and for very little reason at that, shows
a lack of respect for the character on the part of the filmmakers. You could change her
name to Kar-Dan or something and you would have an entirely new character.
And this scaling back of Mar-Vell will affect Kamala's Disney+ show too. The "Ms." in "Ms.
Marvel" was a way to easily differentiate Carol from Mar-Vell. She was the female Marvel,
and the specific word indicated her feminism. But gender is the only thing it inherently
distinguishes from the Captain. As such, Kamala using the "Ms." to differentiate herself from
the Captain in a setting where there is not, and never has been, a male Captain Marvel
genuinely makes no sense at all. Batgirl and Batwoman make age a distinction as well as
gender to distinguish the female spin-offs from each other, so a setting that has Kate
without Bruce could still introduce a Batgirl and have it make total sense. But "Ms." doesn't
imply anything about her age, so it doesn't work. She's just the female counterpart to
the... already female Captain Marvel. And let's not even get into settings where Captain
Marvel seemingly isn't around and might not even exist for all we know.
And while Monica might get to be Carol's sidekick or successor in a future film, that seems
really disrespectful to her. I saw some people, back when the film came out, call it racist
to have the black character that predated this white woman's turn with the name now
be a Carol fangirl. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's definitely disrespectful
to her place in the lineage. It's like if there was a Batman series that introduced
Damian Wayne as the first Robin, with Dick Grayson later showing up as a kid who is inspired
by Damian. Even moreso, seeing how Monica had no real ties to Carol before this. Carol
even abandoned the Marvel name two months after Monica took over in 1982, which should
tell you everything you need to know about that.
But Monica is an important character in her own right, even removed from this legacy.
She was the first African-American woman to join the Avengers and even became the team's
leader for a little over a year. A black woman leading the all-star hero team in the 1980's.
You'd think Disney and Marvel would want to celebrate something like that, rather than
a character whose best-known story was Avengers #200. But no, they turned this much more historically
significant hero into Kamala Khan without the powers.
But, honestly, you don't even need to watch the films to see how little regard Captain
Marvel has for its own legacy. Just look at the theatrical posters for these characters'
respective debuts. They have similar posing and positioning for the titular leads, but
Carol stands alone, while Scott is backed by both his predecessor and his future partner.
Even fan favourite and box office boost Samuel L. Jackson doesn't get to grace Captain Marvel's
poster, despite Nick Fury being the film's secondary protagonist. He had more screentime
here than in The Winter Soldier, and that film had him him on its poster. This is Carol's
film and she don't need no man to highlight how lacking in charisma she is. Couple this
with trailers that are only spared the title of cringiest superhero trailers of all time
by the sledgehammer to the face that was Batwoman, and it's hard to see Captain Marvel as a film
conceived by people with love and adoration for the source material, a la Ant-Man; rather
than a cynically calculated move to get a female-led superhero movie out, with no regard
for how good said character actually is, nor the fact that, even before the comics did
everything they could to make her utterly unlikable, Carol Danvers was probably on the
lower end of interesting characters to hold the name. And this is coming from someone
who was a big fan of hers in the mid-2000's.
Even Endgame's poster made Carol larger than original Avengers Bruce Banner and Hawkeye,
as well as Scott, who plays an integral role in the film's narrative, while Carol is relegated
to only a handful of scenes at the start and end of the film. I don't care about box office
gross for their films. The only gross I care about is how gross the treatment of Mar-Vell
and Monica was.
So, we go from a film that acknowledges and embraces the original character's role in
the legacy by making him one of the central characters, and more important in that arc
than even the actual lead character is, to a film that gleefully makes the original hero
unrecognisable and relegates the more historically significant second bearer of the title to
the role of fangirl for the seventh.
So, yeah, Ant-Man handled this subject a hell of a lot better than Captain Marvel did. And,
no, I didn't expect them to pay homage to the full legacy that preceded Carol; that
would be impressive, but unrealistic. But the legacy and the characters that make up
that legacy deserved better than this. Mar-Vell should have been a proper mentor and a warrior
(ideally still a young male too), who co-stars alongside her, and whose teachings continue
to push Carol forward even after he's gone. Again, like Vic and Renee. And Monica should
have been Carol's Air Force partner so that she's on an even level with her source material
successor, rather than being downgraded to Carol's starry-eyed spin-off character.
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Today's recommended video is How Captain Marvel Changed the Skrulls by NerdSync. It's an interesting
discussion of the context surrounding the race's creation and how the changing of the
times may have affected their MCU portrayal.